It seems that in Scotland some Rangers supporters and the Catholic Hierarchy have managed to agree on something, namely that the "Hokey Cokey" is an 18th century parody of the Catholic Mass. So the Rangers supporters want to sing it and Cardinal O'Brien wants to ban it.

Telegraph article

Scotsman article

This does not strike me as very plausible, since the dance is quite similar to many Eastern European circle dances (long predating the 18th century) and the tune sounds quite modern. I'd guess it was a product of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe around 1900, either to London or New York, though I don't have more than seat-of-the-pants intuition to back that up.

So, anybody know the origins of:

- the Hokey Cokey itself?
- this piece of urban folklore?